Snuff bottles formerly in the Mary and George Bloch collection (lots 100-146)

A carved ivory 'conjoined fish' snuff bottle

Imperial Master, Japan, 18541910Carved in the form of two stylised carp joined belly to belly leaping from stylised waves, with a flat lip and concave foot surrounded by a flat footrim, the two fish joined together at the heads, but with a recessed channel of stylised waves between their bellies joined to the more naturalistic waves around the base, which are separated from the plain outer footrim by a beaded border, the fishes' eyes inlaid in jet; the foot inscribed in seal script, Qianlong nian zhi (Made during the Qianlong period), filled with yellow pigment. 7.7cm high.

This unique model from the Imperial Master is taken from the design of an earlier Chinese moulded-porcelain bottle produced at Jingdezhen in the mid-Qing period. In the Metropolitan Museum in New York, there is a moulded porcelain bottle of this same design covered with a white glaze, with black eyes. It was purchased in 1879 (79.2.482), so there is no reason why a similar bottle from the same mould should not have been in Japan in the second half of the nineteenth century. Another porcelain version from the same mould and of the same colouring is in the Chester Beatty Collection (Arts of Asia, MarchApril 1988, p. 61, fig. 13). The colouring of both bottles suggests that they were originally intended to simulate ivory with inlaid eyes, so the Imperial Master's version in ivory with inlaid eyes becomes amusingly appropriate.

The apocryphal reign mark here has some of the standard problems for this group. The characters Qian and nian are reasonably accurately copied, but the character long is wrongly written, with the lower left hand flourish separated from the rest of the left-hand element of the character. Another typical problem is the horizontal line above the lower element of the character zhi. This has been shortened and joined to the upper elements of the character.

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Lot symbols

Y

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